Emails are a kind of minefield. Every email is dated and when I comb my deleted and archived email looking for evidence of this or that, I have to look at the dates. June 2017 (graduation), July 2017 (getting ready for college), Aug 15 (the last day I would talk to her), Aug 16 (the day), Sept 1 (my first day back to work),
My mind separates everything dated into two buckets.
When I had her. When I didn’t.
When we were a whole family. When we fractured.
Every email I have to search comes at me and I immediately examine my memories. What were we doing that day? Where was she? Was she happy that day?
I remember earlier in the summer I was reviewing my life and, taken in 5 year chunks, my adult life has had some pretty wild course changes and it’s always crazy to me where I ended up. I’ve really never been on a steady course that would end neatly the way I intend.
I would occasionally look back with some regret (?) here and there, wishing the events in my life would have lead me down a less rocky path. I would wish for an ease that never quite made it into my life.
And here we are. Down a path I never saw coming and certainly didn’t work into the plan.
When my husband passed, we saw it coming. I prepared, I planned, I moved into his death head-on. I was ready for that. I knew it was a gut-punch coming, but I managed. I cried a lot and second guessed my choices without him, but bully for me.
Right after he passed, I moved my small family across the state to a new job, new town, new start. I was able to make my date buckets into Before and After the move. It was a protection. It was a literal move. I didn’t have to refer back to anything that wasn’t on my terms.
This time, my life has a pinpoint. A line of demarcation.
Everything now is AD.
Aloe & Moss 